Why does my Hard Drive say only 7mb?

[Debbie25]

I installed a SSD HD into my new Thinkpad SL510.
Install Win7 x64.
No problems
Installed wireless drivers, Hotkey and Ultranav.
Rebooted and the system hung at post.
I shut it off and it then said ‘No OS found’

When I slaved the HD to my old system and went into Disk maintenance it only showed the HD as being 7mb.
I could Initialize it but it did not change anything.
I then converted it to 'Basic' and now the 7mb that was showing on the right side is now a blank partition.
There is no drive letter attached to it so I'm not able to run CHKDSK or any other utility.

Verified that the BIOS had the HD set at AHCI the whole time.

Now I know this is not the HD because it happened on 3 different HD’s.

2 of the HD's I was able to install the OS just fine and it would even reboot ok a couple of times and then crash.
The third HD I tried to Ghost it with both 'Ghost' and 'Casper' and it bombed during that process and again showed up the same as the first 2.

I even tried running HDDERASE at the DOS level and it failed.
I can see this happening to 1 drive but 3 of them.

Have you ever heard of this and know what happened?

Thanks,
Debbie

 

[rclarke250]

what do the diagnostics from the drive manufacturers show?

 

[goombawaho]

It can't be the hard drive(s) - all three aren't going to be bad. Try a BIOS update on the PC, then look at the options very carefully within the BIOS.

See if the BIOS detects the hard drive first of all and then detects it as the proper size. If not, your PC is just not happy with that newfangled SSD.

 

[bobw]

Debbie25,
Give this utility a try

http://hddguru.com/software/2007.07.20-HDD-Capacity-Restore-Tool/

I hope it helps - Bob

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will see every problem as a nail." - Abraham Maslow

 

[goombawaho]

Sorry, but I would NOT recommend following the above advice.

 

[bobw]

goombawaho,
What is your reasoning? I have used this utility to repair a drive that reported a fraction of it's drive size - you may be right, but I would like to know why you posted this warning.
Bob W

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will see every problem as a nail." - Abraham Maslow

 

[goombawaho]

Experience, gut feeling - nothing against you or that idea. Just that sixth sense.

I think the problem is in how the drive is being detected by the BIOS which is a very low level function. In terms of troubleshooting, I should maybe have said "try my idea first and then move on".

 

[DrB0b]

Two things I notice about the HDD tool mentioned above, not to lambast you bobw but just noticed these when looking at the link provided:
1) This system is Win7 as stated and the software only supports up to XP as far as I can see
2) DOes it support Solid State? Not that I can tell

Im sure it does as you say for SATA/IDE drives on an XP system. Do you have any other idea as for a program that runs on 7? Because I do not

"Silence is golden, duct tape is silver...

 

[bobw]

Thanks for your input - I am certainly not the sharpest crayon in the box, but was hoping that my limited experience might help Debbie25. One of the great things about the IT field is that we are continually learning...I just did.
Bob W

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you will see every problem as a nail." - Abraham Maslow

 

[kjv1611]

If no go looking at the BIOS, you might also want to consider the cable between the mobo and ssd.... then again...

Okay.. you said it's doing the same thing to 3 diff drives. Did all 3 show up the same in sysmgmnt on the other PC?

When you say you checked the BIOS settings, have you tried just setting the BIOS to all defaults? I might would actually just suggest totally resetting the bios by using the RESET CMOS switch (if your mobo has one), or else removing the CMOS battery for a few minutes, and replacing.. Of course, you may have to reset the time and date in the BIOS, but that's not a big deal.

It really does sound like it has to be something with the BIOS. I just can't figure what would cause it to show as a diff size on a totally different PC..

 

[BadBigBen]

are we talking about an Intel SSD? if so there seems to be a firmware bug that is causing some to go bananas and report only 8MB as empty space...

Background:

For users unfamiliar with the issue, an Intel SSD 320 Series drive may exhibit a drive capacity of 8MB
and an electronic serial # field containing a message of “BAD_CTX 0000013x” caused by an unexpected power loss under specific conditions.
Once this error occurs, no data on the SSD can be accessed and the user cannot write to or read from the SSD.

source: Intel.com/BAD_CTX+13x+Error

go to the above link, there you find instructions on how to proceed further...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"